I was very impressed with myself for buying train tickets there and back in Chinese, they cost about £4 between them for about an hours journey each, Network Rail could learn something about pricing policy here.
Suzhou is renowned throughout China for its beautiful gardens and its beautiful women. On my arrival, I was 'befriended' by a motorcycle taxi guy, and since it was baking hot I thought I might as well let him take me into town. He didn't speak a word of English, so the conversation was interesting. In the absense of clear instructions, he apparently used his inititave and decided which of Suzhou's delights I would be more interested in seeing. We turned up outside a very dodgy looking "KTV" that he wanted to take me into. I walked off but he followed me, and this time I said "park" in Chinese very clearly! I'd already paid him for the trip here so he said he'd take me to a park instead, and we went to a very nice lesser-known park called Dong Yuan (East Garden) that was only 10 RMB entry.
Chinese gardens, unlike western ones, do not try to improve upon nature, but instead create an atmosphere conducive to relaxation and thoughtfulness, according to my guidebook.
Apparently this is well achieved via Communist pandas.
In addition, Dong Yuan also had a zoo! It was so hot that most of the creatures (and zoo keepers!) were asleep in their enclosures. They had a lion that wasn't very ferocious, but they did have a really powerful looking tiger! (In China, the tiger is the king of the animals, because the marks on his head look like the chinese character for king, Wang)
Look closely and you'll notice that these fish have very funny bulgey eyes. I was very excited by them, but every Chinese person I've shown them to has been unimpressed - apparently they're fairly common here.
After looking around the garden, I decided it was time to find a hotel. My guidebook had listed a few, but they were all at the upper end of my spending plan. The motorcycle taxi guy still wouldn't go away which was becoming annoying, but he didn't ask for more money either (although I did pay for his Dong Yuan ticket). I decided he could make himself useful and take me to a hotel - I told him I was looking to spend 400-500 RMB, and to be fair to him he found me a nice one a little way outside the city centre that was only 300. I headed to my room and he still wouldn't go away, which was now a little worrying. We chatted for a little bit before I told hism I wanted to sleep and he should go. I'd earlier told him I was meeting friends later to try an encourage him to leave, and he wanted to come and meet us later. Then he decided he wanted to borrow my digital camera (which I'd told him cost me about £50, or 700 RMB, although actually it was a fair bit more) to take pictures of his girlfriend, and return it to me that night. Well, obviously, this was it, so I told him to be gone, and he moaned and said I owed him 4 RMB for the transport (24p), which I gladly gave him, locked the door, and went to have a shower. He hung around for a bit knocking but finally got the message and left.
I didn't realise until the next day, but he'd taken the recipt for my 100 RMB deposit on the room, so I wasn't able to get it back which was a bugger, but I'm told that if 100 RMB is all I've lost in China due to scams, I'm not doing too badly. I pinched a couple of towels from the hotel to make sure that he wasn't able to go and get the deposit himself!
I have a few Shanghai friends who work in Suzhou, and I aranged to meet them that evening to look around. Unfortunatly Mark (see earlier post, "The Plot Thickens...") had a short notice commitment so couldn't make it, but my other guide YaoYao showed me some of the sights, a massive artificial lake with a big island in the middle (they put the island in afterwards by draining the lake, pretty impressive stuff, but the photos came out badly). Suzhou really isn't Shanghai though - we were looking for a restaurant at about 10.30pm (an easy feat in Shanghai), but despite finding many nice-looking ones, they were all about to close, and we finally had to settle for McDonalds. (although I secretly wasn't upset - chips and tomato ketchup! A chunk of meat in bread!)
Me looking very smug with my Western food
Not the recommended way to mentain that figure...The next day, I had breakfast in the hotel Chinese style. I'm not certain but SOMETHING seriously disturbed my system for a long time from about 16 hours later and I suspect the rice porridge might not have been made using boiled water (it was certainly tap water from the taste, but that shouldn't be a problem if it's been boiled), and I drank lots of it! Incidentally, I and Chris have both noticed how Chinese drink much less with their meals than westerners, and it tends to be warm or hot drinks as opposed to cold ones. We've both become coke drinkers because its about the only drink regularly chilled!
On Yaoyao's suggestion, I checked out "The Humble Administrator's Garden", the most famous garden in Suzhou. The entrence fee is 70 RMB (!!) but the garden is large and fairly spectacular so it wasn't so bad.
Photograph slave that I have become, I was distraught when my camera ran out of battery in the middle of the garden. You aren't seeing the bansai tree garden, the bamboo meditation chamber, or lots of other lovely spots.
The garden gets its name from a certain Imperial beaurocrat whoretired and returned to suzhou and made this garden. He is supposed to have said, in the noblest vein, that "To stay at home tending his garden and selling his vegetable crop, is the policy of a humble man". However, his garden covers over 50,000 square metres, with buildings, boulders, lakes and landscaped hills. I can't help thinking it took considerably more than one humble man to build. Some things never change.
After leaving the garden, I fancied a trip on a boat around the canals of Suzhou (Marco Polo called it 'the Venice of the East'). Another local who spoke no English said he'd take me to one for 5 RMB on his pedlo. We set off and it was great fun, then I noticed that we were crossing the river instead of going to boats - and ended up outside another KTV with pictures of pouting movie star girls on the outside. He kept saying something about how cheap it was (I'm now sure that they're on some commission) and a horde of girls appeared saying it was happy hour (I was incredibly happy when one bumped her head on the bike when trying to get into the seat to talk to me). When he realised that he wasn't getting his commission for the day, the cycle driver turned nasty and complained about the wet sweat patch I'd left on his bike seat. But he was 5 foot 4 and as skinny as a beanpole, and by now thoroughly fed up with locals I practiced some of the bad language I've learned to date on him.
It was by this stage a bit late for a boat ride since my train was leaving fairly early, so instead I decided to walk back to the station with my spare hour, which was very nice and pleasently local free.
On balance, the gardens of Suzhou are everything they're said to be and definatly worth a visit. Taxis are incredibly cheap here as well. However more than one day here could rapidly become too much, both Mark and YaoYao look forwards to the weekends when they can get back to SH. It's just a little bit too slow, despite being a reasonably sized city. Not a scratch on Shanghai!
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